Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

coondoggie writes "Despite a push to bulk up its security expertise, the FBI in some case lacks the skills to properly investigate national security intrusions. That was one of the major conclusions found in the US Department of Justice inspector general audit of the FBI's ability to address national security cyberthreats today. The DOJ looked at 10 of the 56 FBI field offices and interviewed 36 agents. Of those interviewed, 13 'lacked the networking and counterintelligence expertise to investigate national security intrusion cases.'"

True, it is not. However those who work for the FBI as agents, and potential candidates, feel a sense of helping the greater good, in similar fashion a military service man/woman would. Hence, the argument of why take a job in the FBI instead of private sector, was saying that not just money is someones motivation.

The FBI actually pays pretty well. Most agents make $80k within 3 years if they do well and the upward limits can get over $130,000. The hours kind of suck (50 hours a week) but the retirement is insanely good.

From fbijobs.gov:
12. How much are FBI Special Agents paid?
Special Agent trainees at the FBI Academy are paid as GS-10, step 1 ($43,441) plus the Quantico, VA locality adjustment (17.50%) during their time at the FBI Academy. This equates to $51,043 on an annualized basis (or $1,963 per each two-week pay period).
Newly assigned Special Agents are paid as GS-10, step 1 ($43,441) plus locality pay and availability pay. Locality pay (which ranges from 12.5% to 28.7% of base salary depending upon office assi

Really? Please do tell us about this curious phobia you have about firearms. It must be profound if it would prevent you from taking a career path that you admit is more attractive than the one you're on. I mean really. What is so scary about a firearm that you won't even touch one?

The story doesn't make any sense. Why would anyone survey field offices to check their ability to deal with and analyse computer issues.

It is a specialised field and you would assume any national policing agency would create a specialist task force and office to deal with those issues.

No different to the other forensic investigators, using rough and tumble field agents (active physical and high threat activity) is a dual sided waste, it means you can not use the less than physically fit but definitely

The Slashdot story misreports the data, as usual.
The actual report says that 36% of the agents who were assigned to national security related cyber investigations self-reported that they did not have the necessary expertise for the job they were doing.

And those are the national-security related cases, which the FBI considers to be the most important category. It's probably worse at the regular computer-related crime level.

They're trying. The FBI actually runs agents through "A+" training, and "Linux for Law Enforcement". After 5 years as an FBI agent on the "cyber" side, agents should be able to configure a Linux kernel and have an in-depth knowledge of the Windows registry. Those agents also have to learn all the regular FBI agent skills.

The report points out that 41% of the FBI's "cyber" force is tied up investigating child pornography, while only 4% work on Internet fraud. That's why they're doing so badly on online crime.

Just because they take the A+ cert course doesn't mean they passed.These are usually existing agents that are pressed into cyber duties and no one is going to dump an agent with years of experience because they we we over their head in a area that takes years to master.

They need to by hiring IT people first and make them into agents. Not the other way around.

I took A+ for easy credits and ended up having to correct the instructor on several points. That's not to say I didn't learn anything, but I didn't learn anything I couldn't look up rapidly and I forgot most of it because nobody is configuring serial ports with fucking jumpers any more. That shit is over unless you're working on embedded systems for machining or whatnot, and due to the amazing backwards compatibility of the PC, in many cases you can actually install something vastly newer and still have it

I think you've seen too many movies. People are motivated by money with VERY FEW exceptions. If the man wanted this guy, they could have probably picked him up pretty easily before it got into the news. Not to mention the fact that working for the US FBI comes with quite a bit of power. The second of the three major motivators for humans (religion being the third).

Sure, there's been 10 or 20 people in the last century who aren't motivated by money or power but I'm guessing geohat and Mother Theresa do

One more thing about your post that made me laugh. Geohat is not some human rights activist. He's a kid that wants to play free video games. Now, I don't have a problem with that myself, but to decide he's now a human rights activist because he got caught stealing games from sony? LOL.

You haven't been paying much attention.

Geohot discovered a technique which could, potentially, be used by others to "steal video games" -- but there has been no credible allegation (and remember, Sony had a big discovery phase

Geohot discovered a technique to pirate games and is trying to stay out of more trouble by saying "ohh that's just a side affect". Again, I don't have anything against piracy, but calling a club a spade isn't reality.

"A technique to pirate games", or "a technique to enable OtherOS"? The technique, in and of itself, does neither of those things -- what you call it, then, is a matter of your chosen spin.

That said -- if the "technique to pirate games" spin were more accurate, Sony would have been able to dig evidence to that effect in discovery; I doubt that they would have chosen to settle if they'd found evidence that would let them drag their opponent's name through the mud (and thereby turn around all the persecuting-t

You seem to not know what prison is. As an ex-army officer, then 'conscientious objector', I served 'six years hard labour' in Australia's prisons. Like a luxury hotel, with work leave, study leave, weekend home visits.
Read other posts here. The military & para-military senior staffers have the 'PSYCHOLOGY TODAY' magazine personality of the right-wing archetype: politically correct 110%, deeply ingrained insecurity, fear off complexity, fear of wrong decisions, fear of risk-taking, and generally

So this is based on self assessment? Ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect ? [wikimedia.org] It basically says that incompetent people tend to over-rate their own abilities and vice versa (particularly true for North Americans, it's not so pronouced in Europe and even less so in Asia.). This actually gives me hope that at least some of the agents are aware of the immensity of what they are up against. If they rated themselves as being 100% up to the task then I'd truly worry.

Also of note is that a vast majority of their actual subject matter experts that the agents actually get help from are actually contractors that are paid very well and know what they are doing. That is why people generally do not join a government agency directly. They go through a contracting company and make a lot more money. A lot of the contractors actually scratch their heads trying to figure out why the government does this. They would join those agencies directly if they paid anywhere close to wh

What is publicly released in not the full truth. There is also more to this than reactive work on crime. Not included is the commercial, exploration and pro-active ventures to commercial, government and non government agencies, internally & externally. Plus reward 'perks' for senior and retiring staff members.
In Australia, a retired (elected politican) Minister responsible for our secret police was surprized to see one of his senior spies enjoying his forthcoming retirement, at extreme expense to

Government IT secret service work is not just reactive countering. My friends have participated in USA-intrusion of other nations' defences: military, commercial,government & non-government. Either for future uses, or current immediate targets.

Having worked with a few Special Agents to break an international paedophile ring a few years ago, I can say from experience, the F.B.I have very few agents well equipped and extremely clued up. I was lucky to get in touch with the right special agents, although I hit a complete brick wall beforehand with agents who's mission in life was "COFEE and donuts" excuse the cofee joke http://www.microsoft.com/industry/government/solutions/cofee/default.aspx [microsoft.com]

A few years ago, someone cracked my wife's VOIP account and was using it to run a phishing-type bank scam. They were less than sophisticated in their methods, and with the help of the admins at the ISP from which the attack was coming, we quickly tracked down the source. The admin agreed to leave things in place long enough for me to contact the FBI. This I did, explaining that the attack was in progress "right now" and we had copious information that would make law enforcement action a no-brainer. Again, I reported an in-progress banking scam to the FBI. What I got from them was a promise that an agent would call me the next day. That's it. She didn't, and the other admin and I did what we could (precious little) to prevent more crime. Maybe the call-taker didn't understand the issue and it's immediacy. That's a problem in and of itself, and rather supports TFA's premise. Whatever the case, the message was loud and clear. Federal law enforcement does not pay attention to "the little people". Maybe it's indifference, or may be it's technical incompetence. It is definitelty fail.

And yet, on other topics, Slashdotters are known for ranting about how government workers are overpaid, that government is evil, and libertarianism solves all problems. And here we see the result: when the FBI can't pay enough to hire good people, then it can't do its job well and everyone except the criminals suffers. It is all very well for people to bitch about their taxes, but there are real-world consequences.

And, to address another poster, who wrote "Most agents make $80k within 3 years if they do w

FBI is government, government only gets money if there is a problem to fix. If they reported they were the best in the world, their funding would get cut and they wouldn't be able to sustain. The more critical findings are of the state of something in government, the more money is thrown it's way.